Stakes, Quivers & Crossbows
by julzbobbibroun
Summary: Oliver Queen has just returned to Starling City to find that a lot has changed. His two younger sisters, Thalia Bouthaïna and Thea Dearden Queen, have grown apart and their lives fallen into downward spirals since his disappearance. Someone will soon learn the secret legend of Slayers and vigilantes are about to make an interesting debut.
1. Intro

**Stakes, Quivers & Crossbows**

_Oliver Queen has just returned to Starling City, after five years shipwrecked on a remote island, to find that his mother Moira has been remarried to, the former CFO and now CEO of Queen Consolidated, Walter Steele; his best friend Tommy Merlyn is seeing ex-girlfriend Dinah 'Laurel' Lance; and his two younger sisters have fallen further into lives of shallowness and frivolity to fill the void left by their long-time missing and presumed to be dead father and older brother._

_Thalia 'Buffy' Bouthaïna and Thea Dearden Queen are the fraternal twin sisters of the missing Starling City scion. Buffy and Thea haven't really opened up to each other and have spent a lot of time apart in the last five years, but both were similarly __wasting every opportunity given to them and throwing their teenage lives away. __Oliver is about to begin his one man war against white collar crooks, low-life thugs and everyone in between who have failed his city. Both of his sisters were unknowingly born as Potential Slayers and never found by the Watchers Council. Only one will be called (a total duh, as to which sister), but only time will tell when._

* * *

Starts in_ Arrow_ season one and pre-_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_. I got some major inspiration after seeing the _Arrow_ episode _State v. Queen_, and couldn't help myself. Cogs in my crazy mind just clicked and I absolutely had to start writing this. Like the show _Arrow_, this story may consist of some flashbacks. Whilst reading, pretend that you are watching the original episodes, also including my additions here and there. Just letting you know, I may be veering off the show and doing my own thing eventually.

Buffy won't be called as the Slayer right away because I want to explore the careless, wayward party girl she could have been without any responsibilities. She is seventeen, the same age as Thea was when the _Arrow_ pilot began. Buffy and Thea both have their problems with booze and drugs and partying, the same as Oliver was famous for before the island of Lian Yu changed him forever. However, the former has really been hitting it hard for different reasons. Thalia Queen has had more than her usual share of some pretty screwy nightmares lately...

* * *

Disclaimer: Yeah... this is _FanFiction_... hmmm...

Pairings: _Arrow_ canon with a little _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ and maybe even some DC monkey wrenches thrown into the mix.

Warning: I have stolen a bit from _Smallville_ to kick things off. I have no original ideas so I will probably be borrowing things from my other writings and, very possibly, other people. Oh, and I've used a little creative licence and changed a few details to make it easier for a written format (e.g. changed colour of the bedrooms walls – just letting you cray-cray mega fans know in case you get all shirty about the discrepancies).

Notes: The story is influenced primarily by _Arrow_, I'm not gonna lie. This also draws material from related films, comic books, other shows, etc. to fill in the blanks and add some flavour. I've also kinda gotten some ideas to include some rather... _interesting_ titbits later on. **_A little heads up that Starling City is going to be moved from California to the north of Delaware – blame the writers of_ Arrow_ and their making it close to Blüdhaven and neighbours with Gotham City._ **There are going to be many fictional locations made up by me.

This was actually supposed to be a short palette cleanser. A bit of a break from my other story so I could go back to it with fresh eyes. However, I ended up starting a few other fics and all of them have turned into these big and monstrous monstrosities. I will deffs finish every single one of them, though. It shall be done but will take a while.


	2. Like, what?

**Now**

**2012**

It was a rather warm afternoon on the outskirts of a busy metropolitan area in the Midwest. A seventeen year-old girl, with a glowing honey tan and long blonde hair as sunshiny as the blazing sun in the sky, was inconspicuously sauntering away from a grand brick building. She was surrounded by striking architecture, meticulously manicured grounds and a small, exclusive group of giggling, gossiping girls. A snobby clique consisting of the elitist of the most elite at an elite prep school.

Classes were out, school had ended for the week, and the prettiest and most popular girls at Excelsior Academy were sneaking off a fortified school campus to go shopping because, well... duh! Because they could. At the head of the prissy pack, the blonde girl was efficiently manoeuvring her friends behind a row of severely straight trimmed hedges in the well maintained north garden. They tip-toed up to the wrought iron fence that separated these children of privilege from the regular, average ninety-nine percenters of the rest of the world.

Unless they were there on a rarely given out and extremely difficult to obtain scholarship, if a kid was in attendance at Excelsior, then that particular individual came from money. Belonged to families that had fortunes larger than most small nations and unfathomable power that stretched across to every nook, cranny and corner of the globe. Trust funds, so plentiful that they could run numerous independent countries for several centuries, lined these children's future bank accounts and solely relying on nepotism – and for the fortunate few, their hitting of the genetic lottery – was how many were planning to coast through life after graduation.

Nearly every young heir and heiress that graced the polished, white marble halls of Excelsior Academy had never heard the word 'no' whilst growing up. They were each raised in their own privileged, protective bubbles, courtesy of mommy and daddy (and their servants and help). The students there were used to getting what they wanted, whenever they wanted, precisely as and explicitly how they wanted it. With the brief bat of a blemishless eyelid or the snap of a finger that would never get a chance to know what manual labour even was, these entitled offspring would not be lavished with clothes and jewels if they so wished. Their parents would buy them the entire store.

At Excelsior there were brats and they were absolutely spoilt. They were spoilt and they were bratty up to the point where they believed it was their sheer existence's right to do whatever they pleased with zero consequences. That was why the unaccustomed rules and unfamiliar regulations disciplined at prestigious educational institutions were foreign concepts to the majority there during their initial arrival. The oblivious, sheltered scions' worlds were shaken; they were given the shock of a lifetime.

The richest and most advantaged of the who's who, who went there often never learned to follow the rules, treating them simply as irksome irritants and mere annoyances. Suggestions and guidelines more than anything else. That was why this band of it-girls – quite literally, used to regularly gracing society pages without their caring or, very much mostly, their knowledge – was doing something that happened to be strictly prohibited until the very next day. They only had to wait less than twelve hours to be allowed to leave the Academy's confines, but they felt like doing it right then.

The female group of Excelsior's highest tier had just reached a set of heavy black gates when, suddenly out of nowhere, they were met with an unexpected onslaught of flashing cameras and screeching media vans. Countless microphones displaying news station logos were intrusively shoved into the blonde's face and professional-grade video cameras were recording live broadcasts.

The surprised hellions were flabbergasted. They thought there was more chance getting caught out by their strict teachers than a mob of the press – the exclusive private school was reasonably isolated and had a lot of well-trained on-campus security. But it wasn't like this would be their first time encountering either for any of them.

"Oh my freaking god, Cordelia," whined one of the girls to a tall, tan brunette. "Don't tell me your mother had _another_ affair with a married foreign diplomat!"

"Hey, loser! You know you have eyes, right? I do because I'm looking at them right now. You blind deficient, they're not pointing those ishy things at me."

All of the girls turned to the short, svelte sunshine blonde at the head of them. It seemed she was the one those annoying media hounds were interested in that day. Her heart-shaped face was blank as she shrugged nonchalantly in the perfectly tailored, navy blue uniform blazer messily draped around her slim shoulders.

"How the frilly heck would I know why they're here? Thea hasn't been photographed doing anything suspiciously illegal-like, lately. And my mom's marriage to Walter is overly old news. Way ancient. Like, plastic bubble rings and thick-heeled, square-toed knee highs levels of prehistoric cavemen and wooden clubs over."

The coeducational boarding school's flustered teaching staff and burly security guards came bounding over to the towering metal gates where the large crowd and blinding lights were distastefully gathered. They had just heard about the wonderful and astonishing news. The teachers knew exactly why the press was there and were searching for the de facto leader of the wildest gang of girls currently reigning and ruling at Excelsior Academy and its student body at large.

The lively blonde wasn't worse than her brother, evidently as she hadn't warranted an expulsion yet, but nor was she much better behaved. She routinely skipped classes and failed to turn in papers on a regular basis. The underhandedly uncontrollable, deceptively innocent youth was also the predominantly speculated but always unfounded cause of a lot of mischief and mayhem. However, unlike her older sibling, she somehow had smartly managed to almost never get caught.

The petite teenager at the centre of everyone's attention rolled her large green eyes. She reached a soft, manicured hand into one of her jacket pockets. "Ladies," she drawled listlessly, "Sunglasses."

Her friends obediently followed the blonde's lead. They all kept a dark pair of designer sunnies on them for these situations specifically. It was arduous being the famous spawn of the infinitely wealthy and immeasurably powerful, the kind of students who attended the elite prep school in the City of Tomorrow.

"Miss Queen! Cat Grant of the Daily Planet," quickly cried a busty bottle-blonde who was holding the voice recorder closest to the cool, calm and collected seventeen year-old's flawless face. "How are you feeling about your brother's miraculous return?"

She replied on autopilot with a dazzling smile.

"Right."

"Yeah."

"Hmm..."

"Totally."

The small girl wasn't paying attention to what any of these nosy reporters were actually saying. Charm and ignorance was how she dealt with the harsh and pushy press that had trailed her around, the same as relentless moths were drawn to an unwillingly burning flame, since infancy. She had learned early on that if she smiled wide enough and waved for an acceptable amount of time, the ravenous pests would eventually go away.

Her friends looked at the idle young woman with shocked expressions, like she had grown another head. As if she had sprouted a demonic head with huge pores, unruly mono-brows, visible regrowth and last month's hair.

"What are you dorks looking a–" she scoffed amusedly, until she heard something that caught her undivided attention – a very rare reaction. "Wait, what?"

The little blonde caught fleeting snippets mentioning her big brother's name. She hadn't heard that name or thought about him in quite some time. So, this was what they were rudely butting into her private life for. Heartless jerks. What the hell did they want now? Had headline worthy topics become so scarce that they were hoping for her to entertainingly have a highly publicised altercation with the paparazzi to fill their quota? Just like Ollie before... before he...

The thought of Oliver made her heart hollow, return to stone and plonk into her stomach with a hard, echoing thud. She didn't want to be reminded of this. She had finally managed to move on. Sure, she had moved on to a whole other bunch of problems, – that were creepy and keeping her up at night; making her lose a lot of vital beauty rest and fall asleep in the midst of lessons; and of which she was surreptitiously keeping under wraps – but she was back to enjoying what her careless and juvenile life had to offer, instead of depressingly walking around with her freshly highlighted head hung low and a big chip on her shoulder. She could not go through this. Not again.

When the Queen's Gambit sunk and her father and brother went missing, what followed were the worst years of her life. She ended up hiding behind an increased façade of flighty frivolity and flew halfway across the country in order to escape everything. For whatever insane reason totally unknown to her, her sister had opted to stay on the East Coast in the Queen Mansion with their mom. Personally, she couldn't find it in herself to bear remaining amongst the crazed fracas of Starling. There were too many memories, uncomfortably sympathetic friends trying to console her and shameless strangers asking questions. She couldn't handle the painful and intrusive circus of it all.

For the next mind-numbing number of months after Robert and Oliver Queen could not be found, Starling City became ground zero for the media's mad dogs. It had turned into the Queen family hunting ground. Dealing with mourning and loss was taxing enough to deal with, without snooping journalists and blaring cameras at every fashionably fitted step of hers taken in public.

She preferred the idea of shutting herself away in boarding school for most of the year, rather than have the press stalk her day and night. One day she asked her mother if she could get away for a while on a permanent-ish basis and Moira Queen, who was absolutely beside herself with sadness and concern, got one of her daughters accepted into Excelsior straight away. Her mom was such a bawling mess after the unfortunate yachting accident that the diminutive child didn't need to resort to any glistening tears or quivering pouts to get whatever she wanted on less than a whim.

A, then, grief stricken twelve year-old girl in plaited pigtails had her belongings packed up, secretly boarded one of their family's private jets – so that she wouldn't be pestered on the tarmac – and left home. She left behind her family, her friends and her all reminders of her lost at sea dad and brother.

"Legendary American billionaire business tycoon Robert Queen is said to be dead and his son, Oliver Queen, apparently alive," said another blonde female news journalist, a television reporter who was facing a focused camera man. They both left the side of their large news van, set up with a working satellite dish, and ran up to the beloved Starling City native. "Channel 52's Bethany Snow here, Miss Queen, what are your feelings on the likelihood of your father's probable death and your brother's extraordinary return after all these trying years of not knowing their ultimate fates?"

Thalia Bouthaïna Queen, more commonly known as 'Buffy' to her close friends and family, made stunned and silent exchanges with her usually thoughtless group of girl friends. Her expensively lip-glossed mouth was hanging wide open. "Like, what?"


	3. Sisters

A skinny teenage girl with caramel-streaked brown hair that fell past her shoulders was leaning against a black stretch limousine. She was standing in a private airport and replying to the recent text messages on her cell phone to pass the time while she waited for her fraternal twin sister to arrive. She read that Buffy was due to touch down in Starling City at any minute.

The morning sun had just risen over the port city of Starling and Thea was, for once, wide awake at an ungodly hour. The press had been hounding her family for the past five days and they wanted to avoid any more fuss. Fussing from the public that would surely increase if her older sister (by only thirteen minutes, Thea would insist) was photographed arriving on the East Coast before winter break had started. But it wasn't like no one would be expecting her return with everything that had happened. As a matter of fact, it would not have been a presumptuous leap at all – which was the precise reason why Thea was yawning near an airport runway at the crack of dawn; to wait for her beloved and 'angelic' sister to come home.

Serious journalists and gossip columnists alike had made sport of using the famous billionaire progenies as lifestyle news fixtures ever since Robert and Oliver Queen's disappearance on their yacht en route to China five years ago. Initially as tools to increase ratings straight after the highly publicised Queen's Gambit incident, then later as society page filler and tabloid cannon fodder.

The media loved glorifying Thalia Queen, while they heartily enjoyed coming up with new and inventive nicknames that depicted Thea Queen as another up-and-coming train wreck heiress scandal monger. She was 'reportedly' budding to be as rebellious as their older brother was at his drunken and disorderly prime, already having become a regular trashy magazine presence for continual acts of typical juvenile delinquency. Thalia, on the other hand, was _apparently_ learning how to solve the world's water crisis, kiss babies and shine her halo at a prestigious, top-rate educational institution in Metropolis.

Thea didn't care about the public slander. She saw Ollie deal with similar multimedia mud-slinging from the second he reached puberty – so basically, very nearly her entire her life. What bothered Thea was that Buffy lived as fast and hard and rough as rock 'n' roll, just like she did, but wasn't around to do it with her.

The taller, darker-haired sister was saddened but understanding of the tiny blonde's abrupt decision to leave Starling City at first. An onerous era of hardships for the Queens had begun. Unyielding reporters asking painful questions followed them around whenever they left their estate and frenzied mobs with cruel cameras seemed to know where they were every hour of every day.

The twelve year-old twins and their mom clung on to each other like life rafts, as if their breathing and basic functions depended on it, when they were informed that their family's favourite yacht had met a turbulent storm at sea. It was beyond heartbreaking when no one and nothing, not even a small portion of the Queen's Gambit wreckage, could be found anywhere.

Thea couldn't decide on what was the worse experience back then. The waiting or the logical belief that she would never again hear her father's doting voice, or be chased around by Oliver for walking in on him making out with another girl who wasn't his current girlfriend and jokingly threatening to tell on him if he didn't comply with whatever outrageous request she could think of for him to do.

The two sisters were never closer with each other and their mother than during that sombre, stressful period five years ago. The deadening sorrow, unfulfilled wishes and empty hopes were unbearable but they managed pull through because the Queen women had each other. That close familial environment went away after the then made eldest Queen child _known_ to be alive left for Excelsior Academy.

Buffy wasn't supposed to stay at boarding school for as long as she did. Her sister said that she would be away from Star Valley for only as long as the media coverage surrounding their family was still white hot; that she was simply waiting for the Queen paparazzi parade to die down. Buffy told Thea that she would be gone for a semester, maybe the rest of the school year, and then she'd be back. That didn't happen.

Grade school ended, middle school came and went. Then so did freshman year, and then sophomore year, and then junior year had arrived. Thea started eleventh grade and she remained twinless; sisterless; siblingless; she was all alone at home. Buffy was barely around family for the holidays. During summer vacations, Thea's sister would jet set around the world with her new friends that she made at Excelsior and frequent California more than she did her hometown. And with their father and Oliver noticeably not present, the Queens stopped celebrating Christmas.

For the reasons she had and didn't tell her own twin about, Buffy chose to spend most of the year in Kansas. Kansas... really? What the hell was so great about the Wheat State? Did Starling's prissiest princess regret missing out on the cows and the corn because she was raised in the big city, and was now making up for her lost chance? That would _have_ to be her sister's main motivation, Thea would tell herself irritatedly, her musings dripping with an abundance of sarcasm. Because it wasn't like Thalia Bouthaïna Queen was the most anally prim and proper, pansified, picky priss to ever be born on the Eastern Seaboard, or anything at all akin to that.

Subsequent to her sister moving out, Thea has pretty much had just her solitary self to alleviate the loneliness. Allay the soul's gaping hole created by her loving father and big brother being taken mercilessly and far too soon.

Moira Queen wasn't much for consoling, being consoled herself, or human interaction in general once her eldest daughter had gone. There were too many palpable gaps in their household for Mrs Queen to continue pretending that everything was alright. The months after Robert and Oliver Queen disappeared were difficult but then, when Buffy left, their house was no longer a home. It was too empty, not anymore what it once was.

Eventually, Moira almost stopped speaking to anyone – rarely opening her mouth to even her very youngest. She spent more and more days at home, that later becoming more and more weeks completely detached and in self-imposed solitude.

There did finally come a juncture where the grieving Queen widow was able to leave the mansion's master bedroom and rejoin the land of the living. One day Walter Steele showed up at their front door, got all British and stern-like and candidly stated that she needed to get dressed because the two of them would be going out for lunch. His plan to help Moira move on, away from the isolation of her frozen standstill, worked.

Buffy and Thea's mom's relationship with – the former CFO and recently appointed CEO of Queen Consolidated – Walter developed into something more and led to newer, shiner, joyful occasions. Moira and Walter's following nuptials were a welcome and blessed event. The Queen girls were both glad to see their mother smile again, not bogged down by the family's misfortune and tragedy. Things had vastly improved, but the lonely girl living in Starling pressed on as somewhat abandoned.

Upon realising that everyone except her had someone or something to keep the past devastation's constant and agonising waves at bay, – Mom was preoccupied with her second marriage and Buffy had a select group of friends she had all to herself; a succession of boyfriends longer than the director's cut of the Titanic; and fiercely resolute repression capabilities – Thea gave the gossip rags their first solid piece of ammunition against her. She was barely out of her braces and in high school when she was crowned as Starling City's newest Wild Child.

Thea knew that Buffy partook in similar scrapes and shenanigans whilst away at Excelsior. Because the darker-haired sister wasn't the one safely nestled in her own secluded corner of Kansas, away from the keenly prying eyes of her hometown and the Queen-obsessed Starling gossip columnists in the age of camera phones with megapixels, she got into more trouble. Enough trouble to make the notorious and presumed dead Oliver Queen proud.

Thea stayed out late, shoplifted for the thrill of it, got drunk on school nights and high on weekends. Moira was upset with the knowledge of her youngest's raucous behaviour, yet she didn't really try to stop it. Her mom had gotten used to Ollie behaving the same, so she didn't normally choose to interfere.

The now Mrs Queen-Steele – who was helplessly inexperienced with controlling her children's anarchic attitudes – knew that her other daughter was probably acting out similarly several states across the country. However, she received few complaining letters and phone calls from Excelsior Academy concerning necessary disciplinary action. Their mom didn't have reason to do anything, drastic or otherwise, and pull the child of hers at boarding school away from the freedom of living far off in the City of Tomorrow.

Thea cherished the scarce moments she had Buffy by her side because their personal accompaniment was a few and far between occurrence. The Queen girls would talk and the world's hard and harsh reality melted away. For a short while, life would be back to the way it was. Thea wasn't as lost and was made more whole when she was reunited with her other half.

They discussed trivialities like they mattered, but never anything important. And certainly never, in the history of ever, did they approach the subjects of dad or Oliver during Buffy's visits to Starling. That made Thea rather dejected, unable to spill her guts to the person she was closest to. She and Buffy missed so many opportunities where they could have gotten some paralysing weights off their chests, made their perpetually harrowing baggage a little less of a burden.

Unfortunately for Thea, her sister was the Queen's Queen of Repression and Denial. Buffy existed in sullen-faced radio silence for weeks following the Queen's Gambit disappearing; moved away to the Sunflower State for the rest of sixth grade not long after that; and then when the winter holidays of 2007 had rolled around and she returned home to (not) celebrate Christmas in Starling City, the elder twin refused to refute her forced front of conspicuous peachy keen.

A sleek private jet touched down on the sequestered runway just outside Lombard, next to the seventeen year-old brunette. Its passenger door opened and out of the plane stepped a petite girl the same age with bouncing blonde hair and a demure, glossy smile. Her large hazel-green eyes were tired but twinkling and she was still in her Excelsior school uniform.

Thalia Queen's white button-up blouse was rumpled and partially undone, and her rich gold, deep purple and royal blue striped necktie was loose and askew. Her navy plaid skirt was slightly crinkled and she was carrying a trim, tailored blazer in one of her delicate hands. Thea covered the loud giggle from escaping her mouth. Either her sister had slept on the plane or Buffy was a lot more like her than she thought.

Thea was the deafening and riotous rock concert compared to Buffy's rehearsed and boppy pop performance. The mess to her hot. The van der Woodsen to her Waldorf. The younger fraternal twin was more careless and chaotic. While the older – despite rarely thinking every reckless thing through and definitely having just as much stupid, needless, rule-bending fun – approached whatever she did with an offhandedly calculated refinement and finesse.

When it came to boys, Buffy was a tease and Thea the entire party package. As far as the chestnut-haired sibling was aware, her sister had yet to give up the golden key to her tightly wound chastity belt. That was why Thea was laughing.

From what she had been told on the phone a few nights ago, the Excelsior Academy boarder was still dating Tyler 'Something-Rather' – the poor guy's name announced like that verbatim. Thea couldn't imagine Buffy dragging her current disposable toy onto the plane and inviting him to join the Mile High Club.

Buffy always said that she was waiting for the right guy and would just _know_ when it was the right moment. The closest the smaller of the two had gotten to finding the _one_ for her was an old family friend of the Queens who Thea hadn't seen since she was eight, even though he lived a mere few towns over from Starling and resided within the Star Valley area. Neither sister had seen of or heard from him until Buffy reconnected with their long, lost childhood companion at boarding school in Kansas, of all places.

The pair of them were quite a reclusive couple during the four months they dated in sophomore year – Thea reckoned those were the best behaved months of Buffy's life since she left home. They then split up when he transferred schools after only a semester at Excelsior. That was the lengthiest and most exclusive relationship Buffy ever had. She had a habit of treating most guys like Kleenex. She used once and then threw away.

The blonde sister promised to tell her twin about her first time straight afterwards. Ergo, a nice nap and no airplane sex for Buffy. Not that Thea wouldn't tease her for the suspiciously unkempt appearance, anyway. Pot shots aimed at Buffy were never ignored and always garnered very funny reactions.

"Hey Buffy! Where's Mr Something-Rather? You guys look like you enjoyed yourselves," Thea called out from where she was casually propped against the long black car.

Buffy's face turned pink. Success. That was easy and predictable, she happily told herself. Thea smirked obviously and her sister realised that was a joke.

Buffy shot a sarcastic glare of amusement at her twiglet of a twin. "That's right. Make fun of the only Mary left in Metropolis."

_Virgin Mary_ – biblical wisecracks were routinely used at the private schools the Queen children attended. Thea chuckled good-naturedly. She believed that Buffy was way too tightly wound to keep her head on straight – lucky she decidedly kept hers as light as air with the customary shallow bimbo routine she picked up from her Los Angeles native best frenemy, Cordelia Chase – but loved her regardless.

The two girls hugged and Buffy switched her serious and flustered expression for a bright beam.

"When does he get here, Speedy?"

"You really need to stop calling me that," Thea groaned. That nickname was childish and embarrassing. "You're the only one who still calls me that."

Buffy's grin widened. "Not for long."


	4. Return

Walking through the rich wooded interior of the Queen family's ancestral home for the first time in five years, Oliver took his time entering further into the splendid, spacious foyer. The loved ones that he had desperately yearned to see again were warming up his heart like the soothing heat wafting over from the lit, flickering fireplace at the end of the room.

Oliver gradually approached and took the hands of a middle-aged woman in a light blue maid's uniform. How greatly missed everyone was who cared about him in even the simplest of ways, he couldn't begin to describe. It was almost overwhelming, all of the positive emotion he was feeling. Oliver wasn't used to it. Hadn't been in five perilous, never seeming to end, physically gruelling and mentally exhausting years.

"It's good to see you, Raisa."

"Welcome home, Mr Oliver," she replied in a heavy Russian accent. The foreign housekeeper adoringly looked up at the young man who she had known and nurtured since he was a crying infant. She looked past Oliver's broad shoulder to Mrs Queen. She remembered to pass on an important message. "Mr Merlyn called. He wants to join you for dinner."

Moira smiled. "Wonderful."

A discernible disturbance echoed through the mansion's endless, labyrinth-like hallways and could be heard from the ground floor. Someone had opened and closed a heavy, wooden door.

Oliver was the first person to glance over at the right hand set of stairs in the high-ceilinged foyer. Nearest to where the source of the sound came from.

"Oliver..." said his mother genially, tenderly reaching out for his arm.

Oliver walked close to the bottom of the staircase. The people present, Moira and her second husband Walter Steele and Raisa the maid, let their eyes follow his path with three necks attentively craned.

Moira asked her son, "Did you hear that?"

Everyone was delightedly looking in the direction of two girls standing on an upper floor at the top stair's carpeted landing. Their almost identically twig-like arms were linked and they had paused in their tracks. To the left was the foot and a half taller and soft-crimp styled brunette, Thea. On the right was little Buffy in all of her pygmy blonde glory.

The older twin was wearing a cream, cowl-necked angora sweater and a pair of clean, white Converse sneakers. Oliver was displeased to see the short and tight miniskirt his baby sister had on display, but was immeasurably joyous to see Buffy all the same. He was less unpleasantly surprised with his youngest sister's outfit choice consisting of three-quarter length skinny jeans and loose, layered tank tops. Thea, too, wore sneakers. A pair of sailor blue Keds.

Oliver looked a lot gruffer than the girls remembered. His blonde hair wasn't carefully groomed with gel to create a purposeful floppy wave in his trademark debonair style. It had been shaved down to a practical buzz cut. He wasn't brimming with his old naive mirth or signature endearing yet cocky confidence. However, Oliver's face shone with familiar affection when he gazed fondly into Thea's gleaming emerald doe eyes and Buffy's glistening, more hazel greens.

The returned castaway resignedly supposed he had to someday accept that they were no longer the pure and virtuous twelve year-old girls he left behind five years ago. How could he have expected Buffy and Thea to be so now that they were teenagers? Oliver knew in terms of setting a good example for his younger sisters, he wasn't exactly the shining material of responsibility that should have been advisably adhered to.

"Hey, Thing One." He nodded curtly and with a slight grin. "Thing Two."

The fraternal twins rolled their eyes before spryly sprinting down the stairs and excitedly leaping into the big, strong arms of their indescribably treasured brother. They were both surprised and impressed, on top of their extreme gladness, when they hugged him. He was never this muscular before being stranded on that deserted island in the North China Sea. The old Ollie would have been far too busy sleeping off a hangover until noon to partake in any regiment of strenuous athletic activity.

"We-we-we-we-we-we totally knew it!" Buffy cried. She let out a deep breath. "W-we kn... we knew..."

"–That you were alive!" Thea relieved her sister, not needing to think about finishing the sentence. She could tell that Buffy was about to burst into happy tears.

Thea was taken aback by how much the minuscule blonde kept buried underneath her bright and bubbly bravado. Buffy's face always turned into unreadable and unchangeable, impenetrable steel coated with a shiny, sugary veneer whenever approaching the subject of Dad or Oliver. Thea let go of the annoyance she had toward her twin's inability to open up, deciding to comfort her and enjoy Ollie's ineffably uplifting return instead.

The reunited Queen siblings were tightly hugging. Thea was contentedly sighing with her huge eyes closed. Buffy was unsuccessfully blinking away a build up of cascading salty, wet beads. Oliver rested his lightly stubbled chin between the tops of his little sisters' silky, soft-haired heads, his large limbs encircling their tiny, thin frames. He had almost forgotten how it felt to be unconditionally loved and at peace.

"I-I-I-I-I-I mi-m-missed you!"

"So, so much!"

Oliver Queen's most genuine smile crept onto his harder, more mature, world-weary face. "You were with me the whole time."

* * *

_"...Back to this afternoon's Queen sized special. Definite sightings have been reported that favourite Starling City darling, Thalia Queen, has returned home earlier than usual this year, likely after leaving Metropolis late last night to avoid the attention surrounding the rest of the family right now, and joining them to..."_

A small group of serious, hard-working adults were seated at a rectangular table in the open spaced offices of the City Necessary Resources Initiative. CNRI was a law firm based in the Glades – the poorest and most run-down section of Starling where unemployment, drugs, crime and street gangs were rampant – which helped local residents who were in need but couldn't necessarily afford the help.

Some of the people gathered at the table, teeming everywhere with piled notepads, important legal documents and haphazardly strewn writing utensils, were sipping mugs of strong black coffee after staying awake for several days straight. Many were debating strategies and recording down information for upcoming judicial cases. A few of them were watching the large television screen hoisted up onto a basic metal stand.

_"...Miss Queen has been living away from the family's famous estate in the Near South neighbourhood and outside of Star__ Valley__ ever since the tragedy, still currently in attendance at the esteemed Excelsior Academy..."_

A temporary worker was intently flicking through the TV channels, searching for anything related to some of the city's biggest news in five years. He had been too busy – running himself ragged all over the Glades for the full-on demands of his current job – that week to see solid evidence, only having heard talk and second-hand rumours about it so far.

The temp worker, who was finally permitted to take a well deserved break, ceased his channel surfing when he hit the jackpot. He had stumbled across a national news station reporting on the unofficially official First Family of Starling City.

_"...Whereas the notorious younger youth of American modern royalty, Thea Queen, is..."_

Standing in front of the law establishment's wall of pigeon holes, Laurel Lance was on the other side of the room from the television set. She was listening to her good friend and co-worker's exasperated warnings about going after a powerful businessman in court whilst checking her mail.

"Come on, Laurel," Joanna de la Vega said, anxiously trying to convince her fellow attorney to see reason. "We're lawyers, not miracle workers. We can't win this."

"If we can't win a class action suit against a man who swindled hundreds of people out of their homes and life savings, then we're not fit to call ourselves a legal aid office," she replied flatly.

The two women, about to face an underhanded and near untouchable white collar criminal in front of a judge and jury, went on with their discussion as they walked through the cramped workspace. Laurel was headed for her desk with a pile of envelopes in her hands, that she had yet to completely rifle through, and of which she was reading the names and addresses off of.

Joanna continued her concerned tirade with conviction. "And if we go bankrupt in the process, we won't be a legal aid office! Hunt has an army of lawyers and they're ready to bury us."

She crossed her arms when they stopped feet away from Laurel's desk. Laurel was fearlessly smiling and laughed, expressly entertained by Joanna's previous statement.

"You and I against an army? I love those odds."

"Why do you hate me?" Joanna finished, giving up with her arms crossed. She left Laurel's side in a distressed huff.

The attempting to be truly and completely self-assured legal attorney sat down behind her simplistic desk. She sighed and spun around on her swivel chair to examine a corkboard laden with newspaper articles and a mildly obsessive expanse of pinned notations meticulously scribbled upon convenient scraps of paper, all centred around a couple of photographs professionally taken from an undetectable distance by private investigators.

Laurel was fixedly scrutinising the large board. She could do this, she repeated to herself over and over. She was a skilled enough lawyer to convict Adam Hunt. Yes, she could do this! Dinah Laurel Lance _had_ to do this.

She was broken out of internally chanting her affirmative mantra when she heard the newest temp that CNRI hired, who was manning the office's television remote, turn up the TV's volume. She listened to its breaking reports from a distance. No, Laurel thought. They couldn't possibly still be talking about _him_. It had been five days of relentless media coverage and Laurel couldn't take it anymore.

_"...And as for the son of Starling's Captain of Industry, the castaway's story has already become a nationwide tale of legend..."_

Laurel hastily speed-walked over to where everyone was raptly watching the in depth details on the country's hottest headline. The return of her lying, cheating, good-for-nothing ex-boyfriend who dubiously led her little sister to her death half a decade ago.

_"...Queen's Gambit. Now, more than five years later, it has been reportedly confirmed that Mr Queen is the only survivor of the accident that took the lives of seven people. Of the deceased, Starling City resident, Sarah Lance, survived by her sister, Laurel__–"_

The angrily aforementioned quickly snatched the remote from the teenage temp and turned off the TV. A visible crease formed on her forehead and a fine pair of brown brows were drawn intimidatingly inward. The rest of the CNRI staff silently turned to look at the older sister of the smiling girl whose picture had just been shown on the news. Everyone could see the anger blatantly boiling up inside of her. Laurel Lance was livid and she was hurt and she was ready to explode. She _hated_ Oliver Queen and he had returned.

* * *

There were six people sitting down for a several course meal in the magnificent Queen Mansion dining room. They were seated in amongst elegant burning candles, tasteful flower arrangements and fine, glinting silverware. The chairs they were planted on were intricately carved antiques and part of the same matching set, complete with a dining table that reached further than a fully extended giraffe's neck.

Moira and Oliver were placed at the opposing heads on the table's ends. Buffy was seated next to Tommy Merlyn, and Thea placed on the same side as Walter.

The most compact blonde in the room triumphantly smirked, letting her sister know that she found the evening's seating layout absolutely hilarious. She knew that Thea had a teensy bit of a crush on Ollie's best friend, although the youngest Queen stubbornly refused to admit to it. Buffy was getting her twin back for the uncomfortable comment made about the slightly dishevelled appearance she had back on the air strip that morning. She hated how it was a flashing neon sign of lame embarrassment to be a seventeen year-old virgin in the twenty-first century.

"Okay, what else did you miss? Super Bowl winners: Giants, Steelers, Saints, Packers, Giants again," Tommy relayed what he deemed important information for his formerly socially and culturally isolated best bud to know about. "Uh, black president! That's new. Oh, and _Lost_. They were all dead, I think..."

"And vampires apparently sparkle now," helpfully added Buffy.

Thea was casually resting her slender elbows on the vastly long dinner table and leaned forward. She curiously asked, "What was it like there?"

That question caused an enormously discomfited pause. The speed at which Tommy was chewing his food had slowed down to the sluggish pace of a morbidly obese man running a marathon in the middle of the Sahara Desert. He and Buffy exchanged ill at ease glances. She, herself, suddenly found great interest in inspecting the firmness of her nail beds. Buffy judged that she was in dire need of a fresh manicure and made a mental note to get one the next day.

Moira and Walter were watching on in weary silence and bated breath. Thea was innocently looking at her older brother, innocuously inquisitive and interested to hear Ollie's answer. Oliver stewed in his deep cavern of diverse and plentiful thoughts for a lengthy moment.

He couldn't talk about that torturous place, his unbelievably challenging experiences. The last unforgettable chunk of Oliver's life on that hellish island was five years worth of, ultimately, nothing but pain. Everyone was better off not knowing much of anything.

Oliver's insincerely calm face wore an impassive but pleasant mask as he replied, "Cold."

The evening's uncomfortable awkwardness had just begun and only had downhill to roll from there.


	5. Dreams and Memories

The inky night sky was densely covered with the gloomy onset of heavy precipitation. The grey puffed gloom obscured the blanket of stars – that, despite its location right next to Starling's brightly lit City Core district, were usually visible from the sprawling, old money manors of the Near South area – and the waning moon, which was now casting an eerie glow through the shifting gaps of shuffling storm clouds.

Rain loudly poured in never ending bucketfuls down upon the Delaware harbour capital. White, spiked branches of electricity similar to disorienting strobe lights rapidly blinked as the tumultuous weather raged on, accompanied by the booming claps and clashes of opposing thunder strikes.

That evening, Buffy and Thea slept in the same room for the first time in a long, long while. Each girl had two bedrooms at their family's grand home in Starling City. One that was large and belonged solely to themselves and another, the size of several studio apartments combined, that was ostentatious in its extensive scale and of which they had shared from the ages of infancy.

The twin sisters hadn't slept in that same shared bedroom for years. Not in approximately five years; since the safety of their blinders, obviating all that was unseemly and ugly, were removed; when they hadn't personally experienced the loss of a loved one. Now that the Queens had Oliver back, it seemed to be the prime time for them to restore the comforts of old and familiar habits.

Up until they were wayward teenagers, Thalia and Thea Queen were insolubly inseparable. They didn't come from the same split cell in their mother's womb, but they were close as twins could possibly be – like identical twins often found themselves remarkably linked.

The sweet baby sisters of Oliver Queen were uncannily able to almost read each other's minds, always aware of what their sibling was thinking. They still did at pivotal instances but their bond was severely severed. It broke after Buffy moved away to Metropolis. When a small, blonde girl with a convincing carelessness left home and tried to forget anything and everything that could reduce her to the scarcest of tears.

When Buffy revisited home for school breaks, she dumped her belongings in a bedroom composed of varying shades of white. The slight of stature seventeen year-old did regularly frequent the common yellow walled and rich red carpeted room that she shared with Thea, but would then retire to her individual bedroom located in a different wing of the house following the sun's setting. The nearly completely white adorned room.

It was the unimportant details, the tiny changes of trivial facts that chipped away at Thea's intrinsic happiness. The close as could be fraternal twins never possessed or utilised separate bedrooms whilst growing up, even when they got into silly sisterly tiffs about something stupid and insignificant. Everybody thought that their insistence on sharing one room was funny because the Queen Mansion had a vast assortment of unused living quarters to pick from.

The girls talked less after Buffy moved away. When they did it was over the phone or via webcam because they were half a country apart. Thea felt like she had lost so much; her father, her brother and, in different kinds of ways, her mother and sister too. Spotting Buffy fast asleep under the crimson covers of her California king-sized bed in their shared bedroom was the second best thing to occur that day. Only losing out on first place to Ollie's rapturously received return.

Having yet to don pyjamas, the youngest Queen carefully crept over to the double doors that separated the yellow painted bedroom from its enormous walk-in wardrobe. Thea tried her damndest to tread as quietly as she could physically manage because Buffy was a very light sleeper. They both were, but disturbing the elder's dreamtime had always been infinitely easier out of the pair.

Thea thought she had achieved the near impossible and was about to raise a victorious fist in the air when light yawns and feminine grumbles made themselves audible.

"Wha– Oh, hey Thea," said Buffy whilst gently rubbing her bleary eyes. "You, hitting the sack early? That's new. I thought you'd be out late with Niva and Margo."

Their very active social lives were one of the sisters' main go-to, safe-zone talking topics. Buffy would gleefully relish in finding out the accurate details concerning what she would read online in the gossip columns; see if anything written about her sister for the week was actually true. Thea loved hearing all about Buffy's escapades at Excelsior; everything from her torturously teasing exploits with anything tall, dark and handsome to the raging parties secretly held by the young and elite of Metropolis's coolest of cool and hottest of hot.

Buffy knew that her baby sis (she loved teasing Thea about that) had become quite the party animal – as did the rest of the world thanks to advances in modern technology and the internet. They both turned out that way after they lost half their family, were post pubescent and grew boobs. However, these days Thea was far more outgoing and into the social scene than she was.

This wasn't the case because the younger twin had been getting worse, but because the elder's questionable habitual activities were slowing down in their strappy high-heeled tracks. The blonde sister did enjoy having as much morally ambiguous fun as the next hormone and adrenaline driven teenager. Buffy's problem was that she had been too exhausted lately to regularly keep up.

She'd always had these horrific recurring nightmares and in the past few months they started to become a major issue. The dreams weren't conducive to a good night's rest, making her considerably withdrawn – even Buffy's self-obsessed friends at Excelsior had caught on to the change – and intermittently resulted in unattractive, dark bags under her steadily dimming eyes. Customarily brilliant, hazel-green orbs which were losing their shine and sparkle because Buffy was having trouble sleeping.

The nearly year-round Metropolis resident was terrified of what she saw whenever her eyelids were closed and her mind fell into its own world. An uncontrollable, inescapable place where young girls she had never met fought for their lives against all manner of deformed and brutal uglies that go bump in the night with medieval weaponry. Although they normally brandished pointy wooden sticks, the girls in Buffy's nightmares occasionally switched things up with the kind of chunky, clunky weapons that she'd seen hunky Hollywood actors use in those super long, boring war movies that the majority of males tended to like a lot.

Her dreams were ridiculous, like a bad horror film, but they seriously freaked Buffy out. They felt so real and they haunted her. The way in which her nightmares gave off an inexplicable feeling, as if she was strangely connected to them somehow, disturbed Buffy. They troubled the minuscule blonde more than the traumatising memories she distressingly obtained when she was eight: Buffy watched her cousin Celia die, who was screaming at the top of her lungs during death, then later experienced fear like she never had before after falling through the hidden crevice of a dried out well.

Thea had the terrifying nightmares about slain monsters in recurrence too. Both sisters had been plagued by them since they were kids and did to the present day. The difference was that Buffy's had risen in clarity and with a marked increase over the past few months.

When the sun went down, Thea was rowdy and reckless amongst the best and the worst of them. She acted as such because the only brown-haired Queen had yet to move on from the loss of her brother and father and the loneliness that followed her like a dreary, dismal cloud hell-bent on constantly hovering over her head.

Buffy's reasons for doing the same used to mirror Thea's. In life's passing, she eventually managed to solider on from her grief – for the most part, choosing to no longer deal with her sorrows or let them affect her. The sunshine blonde determinedly hopped herself up on alcohol, trendy social highs and an abundance of sleeping medication to fall into a numbing oblivion, desperate to escape the frightening horrors she saw play out in her mind every evening.

When her batteries were sufficiently fuelled, the Excelsior boarder would go out and get completely smashed with her friends. If she couldn't, Buffy would down an inadvisable plethora of sleeping pills to get through the night. Illegal, recreational drugs even, if she had access to them.

Buffy had discovered that if she was totally knackered when she passed out after a night of not-so-legal substance filled youthful indiscretions, her spooky dreams were less vivid. The chilling nightmares loaded with violence and gore would be just that eensie-weensie smidge harder to remember in the morning.

Thea reached for a dark cotton shirt and boxer set, and was getting dressed. Buffy hopped out of her pale yellow, silk organza curtained four-poster bed.

"Can't get back to sleep, right?" Thea asked knowingly, sticking her chestnut-haired head out of a glass and mirror lined closet that was larger than most people's living-rooms. She knew that Buffy could never get back to sleep after she'd been woken up, no matter the hour or how much rest her sister had gotten. "You know, you've always been way more of a night owl than even me – and I'm Starling's very own 'Midnight Menace' while you are the _Little Miss Perfect Prestigious Prep School Princess_."

Buffy laughed, although quietly. She was still quite groggy because she hadn't gotten a straight eight hours for the past week. The muzzy blonde was surprised at how well she was keeping her lack of rest under wraps from her sister. No one at home suspected a thing, which was exactly how she wanted it.

"I take it you've been reading the news?"

"Watching it, actually. Ollie's been on it twenty-four six for the past five days."

"I think you meant twenty-four seven, Thea."

The youngest shook her brunette head with a convincing mockery of seriousness. "I had to reserve an entire day just for us because you know how much the press _loves_ me and, well... on the _rarest_ of rare occasion, you."

Both girls laughed. Buffy's giggles faltered when she realised that Thea's underlying statement was probably true. She really disliked how bad the reporters tried to make her twin sister out to be. Buffy was well aware that Thea was hardly worse than how she usually behaved at Excelsior. The reason why no one knew any better was simply because the middle blonde hardly ever got caught.

Buffy was excellent at evading and skilled at escaping detection when it came to rule and/or law breaking in general. Not to mention, the school she attended in Metropolis was experienced with keeping what happened within its wrought iron fenced grounds secret. Excelsior Academy was a well-oiled, immensely practiced machine in that area, easily able to cover up the less favourable actions of its students. Also, it didn't hurt that the City of Tomorrow was Lionel Luthor's domain and tabloids in the Midwest were more interested in the latest antics of the billionaire mogul's only offspring.

It was predominantly the Northeast, centred amongst and around Star Valley, where reporters were crazed with the Queen dynasty. However, for the moment, it was with the full force of America's collective media empire that their family was being berated by. From the minute the press got wind of Oliver's living status after the Queen's Gambit sinking five years previously, pretty much every single television channel on the continent had been relaying reports and details about his miraculous return to civilisation.

"Speaking of Ollie, wanna go be an annoying, childish sister with me and jump up and down on his bed until he wakes us up?" offered Buffy. "I'm sure that he's dearly missed us doing that."

She would be crossing his room on the way to the kitchen for a cup (or several) of coffee anyway. There was no point in trying to attempt a full night of rest now that Buffy was already awake. The tiredly worn-out girl swore that she and Thea were born with the neon disease, eternally nocturnal. Buffy also happened to be at optimal focus and function when the bright lights of the city nightlife turned on.

Thea was climbing underneath her massive bed's matching crimson comforter. "Nah. I've got to be awake tomorrow morning. Seeing as I have school tomorrow, and all."

The other twin had gotten permission to stay on the coast with her family and was exempt from classes at Excelsior for the rest of the week due to her brother's homecoming. She was glad. Buffy was hoping to spend some time with him. Now that he was back, well... she had no words to express how elated she was.

Buffy never talked about Oliver because it was too painful; it was easier to keep him out of sound, body and mind. Otherwise, she possibly would have had some kind of psychological meltdown. Buffy's dreams had always been about death. She couldn't stand such things seeping into her waking life too.

Buffy smiled contentedly as she walked out of their red and yellow decorated room – the girls' favourite colours when they were children. Thea was doing the same as she drifted off to sleep, snugly enveloped in her thick, warm beddings. Unlike the eldest Queen twin, her dreams didn't purely focus on their monstrous nightmares and she wasn't having trouble sleeping.

* * *

Oliver Queen was having a nightmare. It was different to his sisters' dreams of fantastical demonic creatures being slaughtered by young girls. His was something that he knew to have actually happened in real life. It was a memory.

* * *

**THEN**

**2007**

_"Sarah!"_

_A younger Oliver Queen; an Oliver who was lazy, careless, and a recent Ivy League dropout, clung to the edges of a round, plastic life raft. He was yelling for the girl he believed to be drowning on the quickly sinking yacht in front of his bulging blue eyes._

_The wind was whipping and slicing and the rain heavily falling in colossal droves, much like it would be Oliver's first night back in his family's home half a decade later. A turbulent storm was raging over the sea where the handful of survivors from the Queen's Gambit was stranded. A massive bolt of lightning lit up the bleak, never-ending horizon. Everything became dark and difficult to see again when Mother Nature's electrical voltage coursing through the pitch-black night sky paused its flickering._

_Crying out for Sarah Lance with every pleading breathe he could muster, Oliver felt his father lean over to talk into his ear. He had to nearly as loud as his son was screaming because of all the deafening noise the thunderous weather was causing. Robert Queen was trying to tell his son that there was no use. Sarah was lost._

_"She's gone!"_


	6. Things Unsaid

**Notes:** _I was able to ignore this when it was only mentioned that Starling City was located near Blüdhaven, but apparently they've altered things so that Starling is neighbours with Gotham City too. I'm going to make some changes to have my story more cohesive with the TV show. Starling City is going to be moved from California to the north of Delaware. Blüdhaven is going to stick with DC continuity and stay as a sister city to Gotham in New Jersey. Basically, I'm chucking Blüdhaven in the middle of Starling and Gotham, but it's going to be closer as well as directly adjacent to Gotham City. Please disregard real life geography in my own little fantasy world where everything is simpler for the sake of convenience. There are going to be quite a few real locations that I'll replace with fictional ones, and some simply made up that will be randomly placed all around wherever._

* * *

**NOW**

**2012**

Buffy was walking through the empty, shadowy halls of her childhood home. She took her time. The petite blonde hadn't been there in a while. She passed her mom and Walter before reaching the entrance of Oliver's bedroom. They were going to check up on him until Buffy nonchalantly informed them of the amusingly immature plans she had for her beloved big brother.

She paused at Ollie's door, considered her disturbing him and then thought about maybe doing it later. He had just come back home after five years of isolation on a God only knows what kind of remote, desolate island. Buffy could play the part of a bratty kid sister with him some other time.

The small seventeen year-old was about to turn away from the olden, carved door when she heard that the storm which was blustering on outside was a lot louder than in should have been from inside the heavy stoned, thick walled mansion. Buffy tentatively walked in to inspect the source. She peered inside the deep sailor blue walled room.

Oliver's bedroom was exactly as she remembered it. Even after all those years, nothing looked any different than the day he left. Moira Queen never had the heart to change anything in his room after Ollie and her dad went missing.

Buffy saw that the window was open. A healthy growth of ivy, creeping toward one of Oliver's bedroom windows, was flailing from the wind and trying to enter through its sturdy frame. She slowly approached him and rested a tiny hand on her brother's strong shoulder to wake him up. Oliver was soaking wet, coated in water from the rain pouring outdoors. He was lying on the hard floor, right next to the wide open window frame.

"Ollie, wake up," said Buffy. She spoke louder to be heard over the booming thunder. "Ollie!"

"Hhhump?"

Oliver's eyes snapped open instantly. With the experienced reflexes of a prey used to being hunted by wild predators, he lunged for the assault in defence. He thought that someone was making an attempt on his life. It certainly wasn't the first time and, if things went according to plan, it most likely would not be the last.

Skilfully flipping over the intruder and blindly believing that he was back on Lian Yu, Oliver wasn't surprised to find himself met with a well-practised counter-attack against the straight hand he was aiming for the person's throat. He was, however, more than taken aback to find himself sprawled out with his back on a plush rug decorating the wooden floor of his childhood bedroom in Starling City, looking up into the worried heart-shaped face of one of his younger sisters.

Much more than a lot had to have changed in the time he was gone, Oliver thought, quite shaken. Out of the twins, Buffy was definitely the least likely contender to be able to do something like this. She was the prissy little girl who didn't even carry her own shopping bags for fear of wearing out her smooth, almost lineless hands.

"Wha-what the hell?" he rasped, too stunned to get up off the ground and to his feet.

"_You're_ the one 'what the hell'-ing _me_? _I_ should be the one saying that to _you_!"

Buffy was just as shocked as her older sibling had been. Oliver Queen was a lover (to many), not a fighter. It was a widely known, well publicised, too many times verified for comfort fact. She knew that he had beefed up in his time away. Buffy didn't think that was wickedly unusual. There couldn't have been much occupy his time with during those five years alone on an island in the middle of nowhere.

The skills Oliver had displayed only seconds ago made her suspicious. He said that he had been by himself for all of that time on the island. Oliver's claim couldn't have been true. Buffy had learned a thing or two about martial arts over the years in Metropolis, herself.

Buffy squinted down at him carefully, as if inspecting a new season's collection at fashion week. "Someone's been eating their spinach during his time in the China Sea, Popeye."

"Uh..." Oliver looked like his brain was in overload. A vast and varying array of emotions came and went, crossing his face and leaving it with impressive speed and control.

She lent Oliver a hand and helped him off the sodden carpet he was lying on.

"Look, Buffy–"

The tiny blonde gently reached out and touched his arm. Buffy understandingly looked up at a wiser and older face. She may have grown up a fair amount since he left, but Ollie still towered over her short stature. "It's cool, if you don't want to talk about it. If you're not ready."

Buffy could empathise with Oliver wanting to keep some things close to the vest. That was exactly was she had been doing for months. She didn't want to worry anyone. Besides, if she did, Buffy thought that someone would probably think she was totally crazy and lock her up in a loony bin until she saw reason.

Oliver thankfully nodded and went over to close the open window to prevent any more rain entering his bedroom.

"So, Jet Li, you wanna join me in the kitchen? I bet they didn't have any Cookie-Dough-Fudge-Mint-Chip on that island."

"Oh, God," he sighed, "I don't even want to think about how much I missed ice cream."

"Now, now, don't give me nightmares, Ollie!" replied Buffy, too happy having her big brother back to notice the allegory behind what she just said. Not wincing at the irony of her comment.

He let out a small smile and wrapped a loving, brotherly arm around Buffy's tiny frame. She was still so small, Oliver thought amusedly. He led his baby sister out of the wind-worn, rain splattered bedroom and down the stairs to the kitchen. Their light-hearted voices echoed through the mansion's darkened halls, slightly muted by the tumultuous storm outside, pitting elements against each other in a fierce waging war.

* * *

"You know, Buffy, I thought about many things on the island but there was one thing I thought about every day," grinned Oliver, licking the Cookie-Dough-Fudge-Mint-Chip off his spoon.

"The wonders of Ben & Jerry's?"

"When you're right!" he laughed. "I actually dreamed about eating ice cream."

Buffy was giggling. "Who doesn't?"

The two oldest siblings were sitting on tall, antique stools next to a large island counter in the kitchen. An open, half-empty tub of cool and smooth ice cream was in front of them and quickly being devoured. There was the looming presence of the secrets that Buffy and Oliver were keeping from each other hanging conspicuously all around them, but they didn't bother prying. Ignoring their curiosities, they both knew that if they didn't ask about the other's then they wouldn't have to bring up their own.

Instead of delving into any subject matter too heavy, Oliver and Buffy kept their conversation agreeably airy. It was the same as whenever she talked with Thea since the yachting accident. They talked and they still bonded, but it wasn't like they were really saying anything deep or important to each other.

"Although, if I have to be honest, I kind of promised myself that if I ever got a chance to do it again, I would do it with, uh–"

"–Laurel," Buffy finished without hesitation. Nobody thought to care or notice, but the wide-eyed baby sisters of Oliver Queen saw and knew a lot more than people gave them credit for. "No surprises there. It's fine and totally understandable."

Buffy smiled but then pursed her lips, remembering a monumental piece of information that Thea had told her about Laurel. Something that Ollie could get hurt by. Buffy didn't want that for him, especially when he just returned home. It would be best to simply not encourage that old flame, the middle Queen child decided worriedly. "But she kinda, sorta hates you a little, little bit now, doesn't she? Do you really wanna open that can of crazy back up again? I know what you did with Sarah was douchey and much of the bad and very, very wrong, but there had to be a reason why you did it, right?"

Oliver tiled his head to one side and peered at her closely. "When did bitty, baby Buffy get so insightful?"

"Hey! You're here less than a day, and you're already making fun of me!" Buffy smacked his arm. "And incorrectly, because I'm not the baby. Thea is, if we're getting all specifical about stuff."

"I may not have paid attention in class at any of the four schools I dropped out of, but even I know that 'specifical' isn't a real word," he chuckled whilst rubbing his arm. That really hurt. Oliver wondered what had happened to the overdelicate twelve year-old who's biggest worry in life revolved around breaking a nail.

Taking her cue from the older brother she and Thea idolised while growing up, the miniature blonde didn't find it necessary to work hard at anything. Least of all, school. From a young age, Buffy went around playing the part of a total ditz, and she played so well that very few even knew it was an act. The idea of cruising through life with no troubles was attractive. She dearly wished that she could go back to the carefree way things were a few months prior, before the monstrous nightmares started taking over her life.

"So, how is Hemery Hall handling the Terrible Twosome? That was the first and only prep school I _didn't_ get kicked out of," Oliver reminisced aloud and fondly. Hemery was the only private school worth going to, for the offspring of old money and power, in Starling City. When he left there, Oliver was forced to complete his education out of town. The sisters who he was very close with weren't too happy about that.

He was such a different person back then, the older blonde mused. Ridiculously lazy and cocksure and irresponsible. Oliver hoped that his little sisters weren't creating too much havoc in his absence. "They only _asked_ me to leave. I didn't technically get expelled."

"Because I'd be so proud about having to drop out of five different schools..."

He was fast to correct his sister, "Four! I just told you a second ago, it was only four."

"Including Excelsior, right?"

"Yup. That was one of the greatest, not even a semester long, landmarks of my infamous high school career. I think I lasted there, what? Less than a month? That's what allegedly involving yourself in an accident with Headmaster Reynolds's Miata does to your credibility."

Buffy snickered. "So I've heard."

"How?" Oliver's blonde stubbled face screwed up. "That place is all the way in the Midwest. I know that Mom and Dad didn't get told about even a fraction of the things I got up to there. If they had, I'm pretty sure that I would have been shipped off to military school straight afterwards, instead of Brentwood."

"I..." Buffy's mouth didn't seem to want to work. The smaller sunshine blonde knew that she should have permanently returned to Starling City years ago. She was still living apart from her family, even when Buffy was somewhat aware of how much Thea needed her. Life just ended up pulling her in all different directions.

Buffy felt like there was some unknown magnetic force beckoning her to stay in Starling, and it frightened her. She didn't want to be anywhere near it or find out why she had those strange feelings. "I kinda don't go to Hemery..."

"You got asked to leave too?" he asked interestedly. Oliver was half proud, half disapproving. He didn't want either Buffy or Thea to be anything like the layabout miscreant he used to be, yet the long time missing heir to the Queen empire did find humour in his notorious legacy living on.

Buffy's green gaze averted Ollie's questioning blue stare. "I never went. Straight after you and Dad disappeared I left home and went to boarding school. I've, um, been going to Excelsior for a while, now."

"Why?"

"The obvious reasons, for starters. Sadness, grief, wallowing – the expected... which, of course, then led to avoidance and repression – my patented Buffy Side-Up Special."

"And then?"

Buffy sighed. "Starling's gotten pretty darn bad while you've been gone, Ollie." Her customarily sweet voice became hollow and lowered, "It's not safe and these days our city has the second-highest crime rate in the country... _if_ you count that hole people call Gotham. Standing by yourself in the middle of Metropolis's Suicide Slums at night is safer than walking through the Glades during broad daylight at the moment. I don't really like hanging around here for too long. I mean, I miss Mom and Thea and Walter while I'm gone, sure. But I, like, seriously get the wiggins every time I come back."

Oliver's face hardened. Buffy took notice of the steel settling in her brother's greying eyes but did not choose to grill him about it. He would tell her when he was ready. She just hoped that he didn't wait for the raging mess inside of him to eat Ollie alive before he did, not that she should have been one to judge. Buffy was teetering on the edge of health and sanity, herself.

* * *

**TBC**

**Warning:** _Updates will be infrequent until Nightwing's very possible upcoming involvement in _Arrow_ is revealed._


End file.
